


Kindred

by Lucidlucy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, And little Rey, And poor Rey needs hugs, Angst and Feels, Being reworked to fit TLJ's narrative, Ben has a complex, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Post-TLJ, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pre-TFA, Teen Ben Solo, canonverse, pre-TLJ, watch them grow up and suffer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-20 09:06:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9484292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucidlucy/pseuds/Lucidlucy
Summary: They are kindred, him and her...Young Ben Solo is tired of disappointments, tired of his father always putting him second, so on his sixteenth birthday he finally does something about it when he steals the Falcon and dumps it on Jakku, leaving behind both his childhood and something else.





	1. Chapter 1

 

_Maybe next time._

Ben Solo has heard those three words often, usually coinciding with his father’s Millennium Falcon dropping into Yavin 4’s orbit to land on praxeum grounds. He can tell how often he’s heard it, his birthday gifts displayed neatly on a wooden shelf in his room, each more extravagant and useless than the last, each marking the last time Han Solo had disappointed him.

_Maybe next time._

There are six total, starting from Ben’s ninth naming day, when his father handed him a miniature of the Millennium Falcon: the most amazing ship in the Galaxy, where Ben had been concerned. It was about the size of Ben’s head, a perfect replica, shiny and beautiful and full of promise. _To make up for not going on the real thing today, bud_ , Han Solo explained, ruffling Ben’s hair and smiling apologetically, completely misunderstanding. It wasn’t the adventures little Ben had cared about, or even the ship, beautiful as it was. He’d watched the _Falcon_ depart soon after in a whirlwind of engine noise and grass clippings, one hand clinging to Uncle Luke’s robes though he felt too old to do such a thing, the other gripping onto his gift. His first birthday at the praxeum would be a lonely one, and Uncle Luke was all he had.

Five more times Ben would ask to be taken aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ on one of his father’s grand adventures— the ones he often heard about but was never a part of. Five more times he’d asked as an excuse to be part of his father’s life. Every time Han would have a vague excuse against it, paying him off with a present Ben cared little for. By fourteen he’d stopped caring about the presents, or earning his father’s time, though the presents still kept coming.  

He sneers at the shelf, wondering what its seventh addition would be today. They’re jarring compared to his otherwise plain room, garish, clownish colors against his plain terracotta walls, glass and slick-smooth metal at odds with the rough weave of his bunk bed’s sheets; bits and bobs from far away places he’s never been to and probably never will entirely out of place here, the only home he’s known for seven years now. The gifts are as ostentatious as the gifter himself, but Ben keeps them as reminders of previous let downs, fitting them into his life as one would wear an ill-attached appendage—

“Ben, we’re going to be late,” Luke calls from outside his door.

Ben dons his brown wool cloak, sedately checking to make sure his braid is tied properly. Outside, Luke rolls his eyes.

Luke had stopped being _Uncle Luke_ about the same time Ben had realized other padawans frowned upon favoritism; specifically, they frowned upon Luke standing with him every year when nobody else had visitors on their birthday. Ben had made his best efforts to place some distance between him and his Master even as the old man tried to close the familial gap, showing up every year at his door with news of his father’s arrival and doggedly standing by his side to wait. Maybe Luke does it out of some ill-placed sense of duty for his sister’s only child, or maybe to make up for the many years he hadn’t been around, Ben thinks, but it is an annoyance nonetheless despite Luke’s good intentions. He’s sixteen now, he doesn’t need an escort to see his own dad.

The purr of the Falcon’s cooling engines greets them at the landing pad as the ramp lowers. Ben stands ramrod straight, counting Han Solo’s steps. One, two, three—

“Ben!” his father waves a calloused hand in the air. Ben stiffens further.

“Father,” Ben responds, inclining his head respectfully. Han laughs.

“Now, now, is that any way to greet your old man?” that same calloused hand thumps down on his shoulder so hard it makes him flinch. His attempt at a smile falls flat on his features and Han’s own ebbs at the corners, but his father quickly covers it by clearing his throat and turning to Luke. “Mister Jedi!”

A mild, patient smile appears on Luke’s features, one well practiced from years of enduring Han’s nicknames. At least this one was a little more tolerable than _farmboy_. Ben barely manages to keep the distaste from showing on his face, waiting out the seconds until the inevitable: the moment when his father gives him an apologetic smile, an excuse as to why he couldn’t stay long, and a gift to make up for it. 

“Well, son,” Han turns to him after having exchanged his pleasantries with Luke, “Look at you, a grown man already.  You keep getting taller every year.”

_Not that you’re ever there to see me grow_.

The thought settles like dark bitter caf on his tongue, so Ben pushes it away and repeats the words he’s heard many times before:

_There is no emotion, there is peace—_

_‘Peace is a lie. There is only passion.’_

Ben blinks. Those words had not been his own. 

Han gives him a toothy smile, forcing him to squint his eyes as he looks up at him. They’re almost the same height now. 

“I know it’s your birthday and all, so _Happy Birthday_!” Han continues, thumping him over and over on the shoulder, a nail getting hammered into the ground with every word. “And I know you’re busy all the time so—”

_Here it comes._

“—I asked Luke if it would be okay for you to take a short break.”

Wait.

Ben frowns, his eyes focusing on his father’s nose because he can’t quite believe the smile he wears, nor can Ben quite look him in the eye anymore. He hadn’t been able to for a very long time. 

“Just this once,” Luke says, cutting through the ever growing silence. “You’ll be sent on a mission.” 

Ben Solo could swallow his tongue. 

“A mission,” Ben deadpans, turning to Luke. He’s easier to face. To Luke’s credit, the Jedi Master knows the fluctuations of his nephew’s voice intimately. It’s not quite a question, nor a statement, but it holds a glimmer of hope. Luke smiles. Aside from quietly waiting for Han with him every year, this is the only time Luke has ever outwardly shown any favor towards him.

“I need you to deliver a message for me. Han informed me he would be in the vicinity, so I am choosing to send it with you instead of somebody else. That is, if you agree.”

The glimmer of hope grows. It matches the hope in Han Solo’s eyes.

For the first time in a long time, Ben smiles.

“Of course, Master,” he replies, then a thought occurs to him. “Where is Chewbacca?”

Han sighs and Luke’s lips thin. They tolerate Ben’s habit of formality, thinking it a _phase_ , but neither one can mask their disappointment well.

“Chewie’s already planet-side. We’ll meet up there,” Han says, shoving his thumbs under his belt and pushing out his chest with pride, “It’s just you and me, pal.”

***

It takes seconds for the Falcon to zoom out of the wet jungles of Yavin 4 and past the red giant Yavin with its twenty-six moons. From his place in the co-pilot’s seat, Yavin looks less like a massive ruby suspended in the sky and more like an immovable sleeping colossus surrounded by gnats, and it feels good to get away from it. It had been a long time since he’d seen the inky depths of open space. He’d almost forgotten what it looked like.

A few moments later they enter hyperspace and his father turns to him with that devilish charm he’s used on so many.

“Buckle up, kid,” Han calls to him. “And keep your eyes peeled. We’re going for a ride.”

“What are y—“ Ben starts, only to be cut off when Han swerves the ship so hard Ben’s teeth rattle.

Han grins. “Welcome to the Kessel Run.”

Suddenly, Ben hates the co-pilot’s seat.

***

“You wanna know what I call that?!” Han asks, bellowing an excited whoop as they drop out of hyperspace. “I call it _cool_.”

“I call it trying to get us killed,” Ben replies dryly to hide his disbelief that his father would still use the word _cool_ , angling the ship towards making planetfall as instructed nonetheless. 

They didn’t make it in twelve parsecs, either.

Han laughs at his remark. Ben had been _very_ serious it. 

“Lighten up, kid,” Han says, taking the pilot’s seat and dropping them into Ponemah Terminal’s atmosphere. “It was just a bit of harmless fun. Plus you did good back there!”

Ben rolls his eyes, cringing at the _very_ fresh memory of Han getting up from the pilot’s seat and telling him to helm the ship. His’s father’s version of _good_ is Ben’s version of reckless.  “Right.”

Nothing, however, would prove to be as reckless as what Ben finds himself doing three hours later.

 

*** 

The _Falcon_ ’s engines groan their complaint against Ben’s severe push for speed upon entering Jakku’s airspace, a planet he’d barely heard of before. Still, Jakku was close enough to Ponemah. It had been Ben’s one deciding factor when he’d sneaked away from Han and Chewie with ill intentions in mind.

Uncle Luke would be disappointed. 

Ben could hardly care.

All he can see is sand out the _Falcon_ ’s viewport— sand as far as the eye can see, rolling like silk sheets over a bed, stretching to the horizon. He scans the skies for incoming ships, finding a few gliding in leisurely from various directions, and looks at his radar until he finds what he’s looking for: an outpost where he can trade the Falcon in for a different ship.

He lands in some version of hell, if the landscape is any indication. There’s nothing to see for miles except for some dingy little tents huddled together against Jakku’s unforgiving sun. His distaste for sand grows in large increments the more he struggles like a newborn babe to find his balance on the desert floor in the suffocating heat. 

It only worsens, Ben’s blood reaching near boiling point by the time he reaches the outpost. He exhales, steaming from the inside out. This barren planet is the complete opposite of Yavin 4’s moist air and lush jungles, and Ben immediately laments his planet choice as he looks back at the _Falcon,_ already reflected on its own mirage where it perches on the horizon.

He needs to get rid of it fast. 

He’d acted on the same impulsive streak Luke always warned him about, always a part of him no matter how much he tried to stomp it out. The voice in his head had won in the end as he sat mutely next to his father, listening to Han Solo drunkenly brag about his beautiful ship to anybody who would listen while Ben became more and more invisible by the passing minute. That small whisper had been right. Above all, above blood, Han Solo’s most prized possession would always be the _Millennium Falcon_. 

So he’d stolen it, feeling only a mild twinge of guilt when he’d looked into his father’s eyes, warped his mind to believe he’d lost the ship on a bet, and spirited the _Falcon_ away, the first of many bad decisions to come. 

He looks at it now as his lip curls in distaste, his heart beating erratically and his skin crawling with invisible ants. He turns towards the outpost. 

Walking underneath the shade of the tents does little to alleviate the heat-induced itch on the back of his neck but he sets the sensation aside, attempting to detach himself from the feeling instead. Mind over matter, as they say. 

_‘Don’t dampen it. Use it. Let it fuel you.’_

The thought comes unprovoked. Ben silences that, too, listening instead to the cacophony of sounds around him; the screech-scratch of cleaning tools from those seated at tables, the shouts of the overseer, the animated dialects of overdressed traders who are obviously not from here; the barking noise of a creature at a trading stall as he passes over payment,  and above all that, the incessant high-pitched wailing of a child. Ben pinches his eyes and nose, the grating sound like nails on durasteel against his eardrums. Everything is bathed in the same yellow-white light, every surface covered with grime, faded colors all looking a similar shade of not-quite-beige that makes it impossible to identify where the crying comes from, coming at him instead from all directions simultaneously. He tries to tune it out as best as he can, walking towards the trading stall in the distance.

The wailing follows him, every high pitched scream a nail stabbing into his cortex, making Ben’s vision blur a little. He looks around, eyes narrowed, until he finally finds the source. 

A little girl, no older than six by the looks of her, all straw-like arms and short knobby legs. She stands in the middle of a clearing, her face a mixture of light and dirt streaked cheeks broken by tear tracks, plainly ignored by aliens and humanoids alike as they go about their business while she screams with lung-power Ben would not have expected somebody so young to have. He purses his lips, partly at her incessant screeching and partly at the grown ups walking by, all of them giving her pitying glances but none of them stopping to help, busily going about their business as usual. Busy little bees. All of them useless, like every grown up he’d ever known.

But he can’t dally about, either. He had his own urgent business to attend to. 

Just as he’s making up his mind, the child’s crying halts long enough for her to blink her eyes open. They latch onto him immediately, a flicker of hope that perhaps somebody would finally pay her attention.  

She sprints towards him.

Ben spins on his heel, determined to walk away and find the trading stall. Her problem would not become his. He already had enough of those to deal with on his own. 

“Wait!” 

Her voice cracks, a sharp, shrill sound as she once again calls after him.

_“Wait!”_

Ben speeds up his pace. His legs are infinitely longer than hers, he’s sure he can lose her. 

“ _Khailoh!”_

What did she call him? 

He shakes his head, daring to steal a glance behind him as he weaves past Teedos and traders, losing her soon enough. Ben clears his throat, checking his robes and his braid until he’s once again a picture of perfect composure before arriving at the trading stall. There’s a line. He hates waiting. Waiting allows for the little girl to finally find him. Ben ignores her when she once again calls out.

“ _Khailoh_!” she calls again in a dialect he can’t understand, voice as gritty as the sand he currently stands on. She must have cried for hours, but he ignores her until she finally gets the message, leaving her standing so many feet away staring at him, her despair smeared on her face along with her tear tracks. Yet still she stands and watches him, waiting for any reason to move closer, refusing to give up despite his withering glances. Ben approaches the stall, eyeing the repulsive creature standing behind it. He studies the triple chins, the sweat-slick folds of skin falling in on themselves as if peeling away from the creature’s frame, the yellow-green mottled skin starved for moisture shifting under unwashed yellowing fabric. 

“Do you have a name?” Ben asks. 

“What’s it to you?” said creature sneers back, shifting his massive weight forward against the counter. Ben tries his best to keep his distaste from showing.

“I have something that may interest you, but I’d like to know your name first.” It’s his insurance should this ever come back to haunt him.

“Plutt,” the creature spits out, “Now either tell me what you have or go away. I’m not in the business of wasting time.”

Ben points to the _Falcon_ in the distance. Plutt narrows his eyes, then they widen, a clear tip off to what sort of creature he is. The _Falcon_ is well known amongst the seedy and the corrupt. 

“How much do you want for it?” There is nobody to listen in on their conversation but Plutt looks around for prying eyes and ears anyway. They’re too busy wasting their lives away cleaning up parts with coarse sand to look up. It's better to not look up. 

“Just another ship. _Any_ other ship, as long as it’s functional to get me off this place.”

Before Plutt can say anything, the little girl walks forward, prompted by Ben’s announcement of his intention to leave. She bravely tugs at the edge of his wool sleeve. 

“What?” he finally snaps, glaring down at her. To her credit, however, she does not flinch. He wishes she had. He wishes she’d go away and stop looking at him with impossibly bright eyes. 

“ _Khailoh_ ,” she repeats, and Ben’s starting to get annoyed by it. “Can you help me?”

“No.” He shakes his sleeve out of her hands harder than necessary.  He has no intentions of ensnaring himself in this little kid’s problems. “Get lost.”

She gives him a once over.  She has stopped crying and has started getting _angry_. Her cheeks are red, but it’s not the redness of tears. 

“But you don’t even know what I was about to ask!” her little high pitched voice rises, petulant as only a child’s can be in the face of Ben’s impassive stare. 

“I also don’t know _you_ ,” he replies, rising to the bait despite knowing how useless it is to argue with a child, as well as what his uncle would say. Jedi did not turn a blind eye to the less fortunate. That makes him stop. Ben turns to Plutt, who is watching the exchange with interest, then lets out a disgruntled sigh. “Excuse me a moment.”

He drags the little girl to the side.

“I can’t help you,” he repeats. “I have to get out of here.”

“But, _Khailoh_ —” she starts, “you’re the only one who’s—”

“I still can’t help you, kid.” Ben says, hating that he sounds a little too much like his father even as he turns a blind eye to her plead. “I’m sorry. You’re on your own.”

And he really is. For a second, he’s sorry, but he has somewhere to be. 

“But!”

“No.” He calls over his shoulder, turning to leave. 

That’s when he hears it. The little girl draws in breath, then yells.

“W-well! _E Chu-ta_!” she screams.

_That_ gives him pause. It’s not often one hears a young little girl with the face of an angel spewing such foul language. Ben turns to look at her, eyebrows at his hairline. 

“Do you even _know_ what that means?” he asks.

She blinks, confused at the answer he’s given her. The three buns on her head sway from side to side quickly. Despite himself, Ben smiles, remembering a time when he’d been as young and impressionable as she. He crouches to her level and narrows his gaze as he inspects her almond-shaped hazel eyes, her freckle-strewn nose and her baby cheeks.

“Then why did you call me that?” he asks, choosing to forget that he’s supposed to be trading his father’s ship and leaving Jakku airspace as quickly as possible. She shrugs.

“I heard father say it once, when he was mad—” then her lower lip trembles and she throws a look around. Ben frowns.

“That’s not a very nice way to ask for help. Where is your father?” he asks, curiosity getting the best of him. Her lip trembling becomes more pronounced, and he finally understands why she wanted help. She really _is_ on her own. She’s lost.

“He and mama,” she murmurs through broken little sniffles. “They were there. I was looking at the pretty metal bird but—”

“Wait here,” he tells her, pursing his lips. 

He straightens and walks back towards Plutt. Somebody must have seen her, or perhaps a call could be put out by the overseers. _Somebody_ must be looking for her. He walks over to Plutt, ignoring the complaints of the people in line as he once again walks all the way to the front.

“Have you seen anyone looking for this girl?” Ben asks, pointing towards her where she stands, close enough to keep an eye on him but far enough away to not quite hear him. Plutt turns his eyes on her, then scoffs. 

“Those traders? They passed by. They seemed suspicious, so I had my men keep an eye on them, but they only walked around aimlessly after conducting their business, weaving around stalls while that brat kept touching all the merchandise. I saw their ship take off. She’s been crying since dawn.”

So they ditched her. 

Plutt smirks at the horrified look on Ben’s face, clearly enjoying his discomfort. “It happens all the time, kid. Rat ditchers, we call ‘em. She’ll die of heat exhaustion soon enough— now, about that ship you wanted to trade.”

Ben looks back to the little girl.

“Does she have a name?” he asks. Plutt rolls his eyes visibly. It’s obvious what happens to the _desert rats_ is none of his problem.

“Wouldn’t know. Now, are you gonna trade or—”

Ben pins Plutt with a hard stare. One he’d only ever reserved for moments when he _demanded_ silence, usually from his peers. It works on Plutt as well.

“I’ll be back, then we can talk about the ship.”

Ben leaves before Plutt can complain, walking quickly to where the little girl stands looking at him with impossibly wide eyes. A heart string twists in his chest. They are kindred, him and her. Abandoned by those who should know better, who should love them better.

“Hey,” he says. “I’ll help you.”

Luke would be pleased. Her eyes widen with hope, and this time she gives him a bright, tooth-gapped smile. Another heartstring twists. 

“Okay,” she says. Ben stands, dusting his robes, knowing full well his wasting time here is only making things worse for him, but he can’t help but feel a small amount of compassion for this lost little girl. He could afford a few more minutes.

“What’s your name?” he asks, looking around. He might as well find her a meal, perhaps help her clean up a little. It’s not like she’d be seeing a proper refresher in a while in this place. His eyes land on the _Falcon_. 

“Mama calls me Rey,” she says. He gestures for her to follow, and Rey falls in step behind him. She handles the sand floor with a lot more grace than he, probably because her center of gravity is closer to the ground. “But _Khailoh_ , where are we going? They didn’t go that way.”

Ben frowns again. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

Rey gives him a puzzled look, her tiny button nose pinching. “Isn’t that what you call an old person?”

“ _Old?”_ he asks incredulously, his brows lifting again. This little girl had wrenched more expressions from him in a matter of minutes than most had his whole lifetime. Ben laughs, a rusty sound born deep in his lungs reaching for daylight for the first time in years while he gives her a once over. Scrawny little body, weak arms, tiny neck, giant head, two front teeth missing. She hadn’t grown into an inch of her body yet. “I suppose I am. What does it mean?”

“It means brother.” She explains matter of factly, giving him a look like he should _know_ this. “But not a real brother, just… an old person. Like you.”

“I see,” Ben shakes his head. When had he become _old_? Then again, it feels nice to be considered old and be looked up to. It’s such a departure from being considered young, weak and dependent. 

Rey nods wisely even as she snatches nervous glances back towards the outpost, wringing her tiny hands and clutching at her off-white tunic. A third heartstring yanks. They’re not coming back for her. He knows that, but she doesn’t, and how could he kill her small ray of hope that way? He watches her three little buns sway.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” 

She gives a cautious nod, slowly falling behind. Ben turns around to look at her. Jakku seems to already be working itself under her nails and her skin, her eyes turning her suspicion on him. Without thinking he does something Luke had _explicitly_ forbidden: he looks in her mind. His skills are rough, he can tell. Rey flinches, startling herself. She’d noticed the intrusion somehow, so Ben withdraws immediately. He’d had enough time to see inside anyway. Others had offered her food. Others with very ugly intentions.

“Only food and water, I promise. We can eat out here.” The way she studies him makes him uncomfortable. No youngling should be able to do that. Then Rey nods to herself when he offers nothing else, stepping forward as if the matter’s settled. 

Her interest peaks once inside, somehow forgetting her distress as she points to a chute and asks what’s there.

“Gunner’s position,” he murmurs absentmindedly, moving towards the common area to find food. A minute later, he’s lost her. 

Ben stomps up the ramp, food portions in hand as he makes his way towards the Gunner’s seat, annoyance flaring. The last thing he needs is for her to attempt anything stupid. But she’s not there. He crawls back up, annoyance quickly replaced by panic bobbing in his throat as he scans the length of the ship until he finds her sitting on the pilot’s seat.

“Kid.” The exasperation hanging on the edge of his voice is hard to miss, but Rey—little Rey, with her gap-toothed smile and a twinkle of hope in her eyes— simply looks at him and smiles. He passes her a packet of food, looking away. 

Would she still be this hopeful when she turned nine? Twelve? Sixteen? For a moment he considers taking her back with him. Maybe Luke could find her a place. But she’s not Force Sensitive, at least that he can tell, and the Praxeum would take no other kind. He looks at her face for a second, as long as he can dare look, before landing his eyes on his food ration. 

“Eat quickly. We have to get back to the outpost.”

She stuffs herself with it then looks up at him expectantly. Ben sighs, handing over his half-eaten portion as well and watching her promptly devour it without even so much as a thank you. She would come to know hunger yet, but perhaps he can delay the inevitable. He hands over his water canteen, watching her drink as though she’d never seen water. 

“Slow down,” he tells her. She ignores him. Her reward for doing so is to choke on a gulp of water, a fine mist praying over the pilot’s dashboard during her weak attempts to clear her throat.

_Ah well. It’s not going to be my problem soon enough._

Rey tries to clean it up with the hem of her shirt, almost falling out of the pilot’s seat while doing so, her legs not long enough to both allow her to lean forward and keep her safely on the seat, so Ben grabs her by the waist with two massive hands that circle her tiny frame, hoisting her off it.

“Alright, come on.”

Once at the outpost, Ben makes a show of looking around for her. She leads him about, pointing to places where her parents had been, but the outpost isn’t a huge place. It takes less than fifteen minutes to interrogate the regulars, the overseers giving her dirty, annoyed looks — no doubt over her earlier screeching — and those at the bottom of the pile, the ones Rey would soon be joining, give her pitying glances. Rey’s lips tremble again and her eyes flood with tears, but like a brave little girl she holds it in and nods graciously each time. 

It becomes increasingly clear that she _knows_.

They’d dumped her like so much useless cargo. 

“They’ll be back,” she whispers to herself. 

The pain in her eyes is an exact replica of his own at age nine while he watched the _Falcon_ taking off and clutched onto Uncle Luke’s hand, making similar promises to himself. Now he grabs hers, fingers dwarfing her tiny palm, tugging up her gently to fall in step beside him as he once again guides her away from the outpost and towards the _Falcon_ , unable to leave _quite_ yet. Not yet.

He plops down under its shade, patting the spot beside him for her to take, and there they sit for the next so many hours, watching the sun slowly turn from bright yellow to red, painting the sky a riot of oranges and pinks on its way to its daily deathbed. 

Ben listens to Rey’s quiet sobs, wondering what cruel Maker would leave a child to bunch her fists into her trousers, learning how to turn her heart to steel earlier than she should. He asks her questions of her home and listens quietly as she tells him about moss-covered fields and creatures he’d never heard of. He smiles when her mood lifts for a moment as she regales him with stories that are funny to kids like her but not to somebody old enough to know better, then makes her prove to him that she really knows Hutteese to distract her. She only knows so many words. And that one explicit swear-word, that is. 

Yet despite his desire to make her feel just a little better, just a little less abandoned, a beep at the comm he’d taken from his father reminds him it’s time to get going. Ben sighs, dragging himself up on stiff knees and tugging her up gently, beginning the slow descent back to Plutt’s trading stall.

Plutt eyes him with unabashed greed once Ben returns. 

“The ship for another one,” Ben says, tilting his head towards the _Falcon_. Plutt is quick to agree, handing him the access code to lower the ramp of a beat up shuttle that’s more junk than ship.

“It flies fine, nothing broken,” Plutt promises. Ben disguises a sneer, reminding himself he’s not here to get a deal. 

“Fine,” Ben agrees, “Now, _remember._ If anyone asks, you got this ship from the Irving brothers. They got it from…” Ben stops. Is he making this too complicated? Ah, what does it matter. Ben picks the name of the person Han had been talking to at the pub. “The Irving brothers got it from Ducain.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Plutt says, his eyes on the _Falcon_.

_“Repeat it to me_ ,” Ben demands. The creature’s head turns as if forced to by an unseen tendril of air, eyes twitching as they focus on Ben. Those eyes try to look away, but they’re glued to their spot. It is only when Plutt repeats the words back that the invisible hold on the creature’s head releases. 

“Good,” Ben says, sighing. Then he looks at Rey. She’s tightened her grip on his hand and her eyes are watering again. 

_She’ll die of heat exhaustion soon enough_ , Plutt had said.

Ben eyes him once more, weighing his choices and hating them all. He did not come here to get ensnared in a little girl’s problems. “I will take the other ship, no questions asked, but only if you also agree to something else. I’ll even add on extra credits.”

Plutt is quick to agree to this as well.

Twenty minutes later Ben is zooming out of Jakku’s airspace, the little cries of a girl he’d only just met piercing into his cortex again, though she’s nowhere to be seen from this far up in the sky. He’d paid Plutt and given her what food he had left, but that’s all he could do for her. Ben closes his eyes against the sound, stashing it away along with her face as he jumps into hyperspace, leaving his childhood behind with a child, knowing she’s about to lose her own. 

They are kindred, him and her. 

It’s too bad she’s not Force sensitive. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worthy of Note:
> 
>  **E chu ta!** \- a Huttese insult that is so horrible C-3PO refused to translate it to basic.  
>  **Khailoh** \- A totally made up word I gave Rey from a totally made up dialect to her home planet, which sounds oddly like a different name we know.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, there :) I am reworking this story to be canon compliant up to TLJ (with a few things having changed here and there for the sake of the scenario with which we started), and though I'll take some meandering liberties, this fic will now be seeing us all the way up until the end of TLJ and beyond. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> warning on this chapter: early mentions of really horrible mistreatment/negligence/violence against a child, and of a brothel, minor OC death in kind of an awful if not-explicit way that's still important to Rey's development.

In six months’ time Rey learns about hunger, and she learns about dying. She learns about the cruelty that permeates the universe under sun-bleached tents and between cracked lips begging for water and food that never comes. She learns of it in the hollows of her ribs, the ridges on her spine as her developing body stunts its own growth to keep her alive. Every night she cries, huddled outside in a small gap between two big clay pots, against a thin metal wall that does little to mute the sounds of women screaming on the other side— sometimes in pleasure, most times in pain. Plutt had tried to dump her there.

The only mercy she’d been shown had been by a Twi’lek woman who had come to know the worst life could throw at her, things Rey had never heard of in her six young years, which the Twi’lek hoped she never would. That kindness had been to hide her between the pots, away from the prying, greedy eyes of overseers who only saw a ripe young credit mine, not a little girl. 

The first week Rey had learned to beg, but begging to the beggars was fruitless, so she’d learned to steal. That too is fruitless, every stolen morsel accompanied by cruel punishment, beatings so extreme Rey becomes no stranger to being left for dead on the sand floor. Every time she crawls back to her sanctuary, to her little spot between sun dried clay pots and that hot metal wall at her back, until eventually she learns to steal _efficiently_. She no longer steals food. She steals parts. She takes them away to her hiding spot, pulling them apart with small bleeding fingers and putting them together by morning.

 Rey tries to approach Plutt for help; the disgusting creature had, after all, been paid to ensure she would be fed. Plutt only swats her away, each insult flung her way more stinging than the last until Rey must remind herself with her head between her knees that she has a name, she has a name, she has a name. 

On a cold night she braves the desert and dares enter the Falcon, raiding the food rations left behind and remembering how the young boy with kind eyes had guided her there once as she curls up by the Dejarek table and once again cries herself to sleep. That boy had left, too. She had never even asked for his name.

In the morning she learns about dying— as close to dying as she’s ever experienced when Plutt finds her inside his precious new ship. She can’t really walk for three days after Plutt’s cronies have a go at her, legs and arms bruised, stomach aching from hunger and repeated kickings, lip split and swollen from punches and slaps that had left her ears ringing. When Plutt sees her next, he sneers. _They went easy on you, little rat,_ he says. _You should consider yourself lucky._

Six months, yet still, by some miraculous force of nature, she doesn’t die. Instead she finds ways to grow stronger, adding bartering to her new skill-set, using the parts she’d stolen to get meal portions. What she can’t trade away she disassembles, fashions herself a weapon out of knife-sharp shards of metal, then fits it behind her belt. The next time they come for her she swings and slashes the faces of her opponents, cutting off fingers and stabbing a throat until the insults at the outpost stop and Plutt no longer dares lay a finger on her. 

Then the Twi’lek woman dies. 

Rey watches two overseers in dark robes take her, their snouts covered and eyes hidden behind goggles, listening to them talk as they carry her by the wrists and the ankles with not even so much as a scrap of blanket thrown over her. One client had gone too far. 

Rey follows at a distance, unseen, and when the overseers dump the body to rot in the sand, Rey watches over the remains of the only friend she’d had on this forsaken planet, if you could call one small mercy friendship. She offers prayers to the Maker, because little Rey still believes in a Maker, and hopes one prayer is enough even as she scavenges the body for clothes and shoes, draping a long strip of fabric over her shirt and crossing it at the waist. The wrist cuff is too big for her. It’ll be too big for her for years to come, but it’s made of tough leather, so Rey takes it, too. What she can’t wear now she hides away for later, then walks away to wait out another day of Jakku sun. She can’t remember how many days it’s been, but she’s made it this long. Surviving becomes her whole purpose. Her _only_ purpose. 

****

Ben Solo bends his head over his books under the candlelight, trying to ignore the small whisper in his mind that tells him this is useless. He runs his finger over the pages, old things he’d collected over the years and carefully kept away from his uncle’s prying eyes, and fingers an old, weathered quill nib.

These books are old, special, copies of long lost texts about the Jedi, and the Sith, and Ben tries his best to study them with an objective eye. But the voice won’t shut up. It whispers, constantly, that it is better to learn by action rather than by reading. It attempts to plant sees of doubt, pointing to him that the doctrines of the Sith might fit him better than that of the Jedi. It builds solid arguments, caressing his thoughts with whispered promises of power, and Ben resists. Hearing voices isn’t normal.

His eyes itch, stinging from candle smoke and the late hour, and he looks through the half cracked door of the small hut to where he’s relocated. It was done willingly. He hadn’t felt like he was part of the main structure of the school for a year and a half now, ever since he got rid of his father’s ship. Being secluded gave him time to think, he’d told his uncle; time to dedicate to his studies. He just hadn’t told uncle Luke _what_ kind of studies, for his curiosity could hardly be sated. 

As dawn approaches Ben’s head begins to bob with exhaustion, slowly dipping as he starts to lose control of his tired neck even though his mind refuses to quiet. The voice recedes, though. It always does as the rays of morning begin to appear, as if the darkness inside that he cannot quite name were afraid of the sun. It is a quiet respite. He looks up, squinting his eyes slowly from where he’s moved to his small cot, heavy tome still spread on his bent knees and hair disheveled from too-busy fingers rushing through the thick strands repeatedly over the course of the night. He watches a small creature cross the window sill, probably looking for food, and for the first time in a very long time the _voice_ rises up, a monster lifting its head in interest, and whispers.

 _Try_ , it says. A single word. Yet Ben knows what it wants, and in a moment of intellectual curiosity he attempts to do the thing he had just read about. He doubts it’ll work, but he tries nonetheless. Ben extends his hand and focuses a small amount of his power, and for a moment he is seeing through the squirrely creature’s eyes, feeling its confusion as Ben freezes it in its place against its will, and the _voice_ hisses out its approval.

It’s a sickening feeling, and yet it feels so right. It beckons him, that sense of holding power over something else. Having _control_. He’s never been in control of anything. Ben swallows, and the vertigo-inducing snap of his mind returning to him, letting go of the creature’s as it scurries way in alarm, is nauseating. He hears his uncle outside, calling for him from twenty paces away, and is glad he let the creature go in time. He nervously stashes the books away, panic rising in him at what he’s done—Jedi are not supposed to do that. Jedi do not aim to _control—_ and the voice has retreated, leaving him only with raw nerves and fatigue.

“Ben?” Luke calls from outside. The old man refuses to stop coming to collect him every morning, and while Ben doesn’t understand it he has long stopped trying to get his uncle to cease his half hearted attempts at familiarity. Ben shakes his head and stands, unsuccessfully attempting to smooth the wrinkles out of his white tunic. 

“Master,” Ben greets, as is customary of padawans, though not for long. His uncle had hinted more than once that it would not be long before he would be tried and tested to become the first Jedi Knight the school’s ever seen, a point of pride for Ben.

“Good morning, Ben,” his uncle greets, a soft smile playing on his face. He has begun to age, small gray hairs showing at his temples. 

“Good morning,” Ben repeats by rote, their daily ritual. “Is there anything I can help you with, Master?”

Every day Master Luke tells him that no, no there’s nothing he needs, just came to collect him for the day’s lessons so they could talk on their way. _Reconnect_. Luke is fond of checking in on Ben’s self-driven studies, asking him questions and encouraging discussion about the Jedi texts Ben’s been assigned. They are often stimulating conversations, when he’s not being distracted by the _voice_ giving him counterpoints. This morning, however, it is different.

“Actually,” Master Luke says, and Ben perks up. “There is. I was hoping to ask whether you would be interested in teaching the younglings today.” At the look of complete confusion and surprise on Ben’s face, Luke smiles. Teaching the younglings is a big responsibility. This is the stage where the seeds of Jedi doctrine are planted. “I believe you are ready.”

He cannot contain the small, shy smile that comes onto his face. The burst of pride. The knowledge that his uncle trusts him in this. Ben nods emphatically, committing this moment to memory. His uncle’s kind, warm blue gaze swelling with pride in the pale morning light of Yavin 4, the way those Jedi robes fit over his strong shoulders. Someday Ben will wear similar robes, and the thought fills him with frenetic excitability. Someday he will be a Jedi, like his uncle and his grandfather. He will be great.

****

Teaching the younglings is daunting. He shows up at the children’s hall after breakfast, sitting himself on the ground with his legs crossed and pulled into himself in a meditative position, his saber sitting parallel to him in front of his knees, and waits. He look up, towards the high stone ceiling. His uncle had built the school based on the few bits of First Jedi temple lore he had found during their travels, for a lot of which Ben had been a faithful companion as they searched the galaxy for the first few Force sensitive children and any knowledge from which to rebuild.

The hall resembles his hive-like hut, though much grander, carefully built, every lovingly placed stone fitting into those around them like a lover’s embrace, though nature had been quickly attempting to take over nonetheless. There is a greenish tint to the stones, an earthy cling of life attracted to the power that resides within these walls, the simple but well kept floors illuminated with dazzling yellow morning light as the first few children begin to arrive, all of them chattering excitedly at the concept of Ben being their teacher. These are children he knows intimately. He had helped collect them from their homes, had soothed them with gentle words and wiped their tears when they left their parents, his heart aching for them. He wouldn’t have separated from his family if he’d been given a choice, either. 

But none of them were given a choice.

 _And isn’t that the problem?_ The voice whispers. Ben closes his eyes and shuts it down with all his might. 

A small girl runs up to him, palms spread up in welcoming greeting. She’s one of the more animated ones, pale blonde hair in perpetual disarray as it falls from her pigtails. She’s barely five years old, but has known nothing but the school since she was two. A small mercy, he thinks. She hardly remembers her parents now, having grown instead to love Master Luke and the other students. He is older than all of them, pushing on his eighteenth birthday, but there are plenty of teenagers that were recruited later than most Jedi of old would have preferred. Those students had become guides for the younger ones, like this one, and so she approaches Ben like she would any others, with a bright smile on her baby face.

She stops at what she’s been taught is a respectable distance, then attempts to bow her head in respectful deference, and Ben has to bite his cheek to keep from smiling.

“Good morning, Master Ben!” she chirps, and the other fifteen children—all varying in ages from four years old to about ten—scurry to do the same. 

“I am not a master yet, Elania,” he says, then tilts his head in conspiratorial amusement towards her, “but some day I will. Good morning,” he finishes, then repeats the greeting louder for the remaining children. “Please take your seats.”

Elania reminds him of somebody else. A child from almost two years ago. He’s beginning to forget her face now, yet Elania’s enthusiasm as she sits down with her chubby legs attempting to cross bring back the memory of her. There’s a curious pang of sadness that bubbles up in him. Had she been anyone else, she might have been sitting in this hall now. How old was she? He does the math quickly, pulling from cobwebbed memories, trying to remember her face. All he remembers are three little buns and an attitude, but he thinks she must be around eight years old now. 

With a shake of his head, he grabs his saber and stands. He looks over them, the children having settled with serious faces and looks of eager concentration in their eyes. This will be an important and exciting lesson for them, the time where they learn about their lightsabers and what it will take them to build their own, and he thrills at knowing Master Luke trusted him enough to teach them. 

He loves his weapon. It is an extension of him.

“Alright,” he announces, and lifts up his saber. “Today we will be discussing lightsabers. They are a Jedi’s weapon, and not to be used lightly. But first, you must know, this weapon is your life.”

****

He’s covered in sweat from his bout, his partner, a short, spunky little redhead two years younger than him already giving him a run for his money. He is powerful, but she is agile in a way he lacks, using her smaller center of gravity to work against his much bulkier body. He’s already taller than all the boys in his class, except for one. Taller than Luke. Taller than his father, he is sure, though he has not seen his father in years. Han Solo had conveniently stopped visiting a long time ago. The only other person his height is Gungi, the wookie trainee, and only by virtue of being much younger than Ben himself. Eventually Gungi would tower over them all. 

Kalen, his opponent, shoots him a bright, glinting set of pearly whites as she falls back into her defensive stance, goading him with two bent fingers in a come-hither gesture.

“That’s it, Ben?” she calls, much to the amusement of the small circle watching them as they wait for their turn to spar. “S’all you got?”

Ben smirks. Sure, Kalen could move quick, but Ben knows _how_ she moves, and that counts. He knows her soft spots, and they all have to do with his proximity.

The voice in his head whispers: _She wants your flesh. Use it against her_.

He had kissed Kalen, once, in a silly forbidden game amongst the padawans away from the watchful eye of their Master.

 Luke had been off-planet for the day, and of course, when the cat is away the mice come out to play. So the younger children were indulgently allowed to roam around, something Master Luke never allowed, and the older students gathered for banter and games. One such game ended up with him sloppily and rather bashfully kissing Kalen, going red from his toes all the way to the tips of his hair. 

But the voice in him now would not allow him to remember his bashfulness, or the fact that he is uncomfortable around girls like Kalen—pretty little things who had started growing into themselves and realizing that, despite all the Jedi teachings, they were only too eager to find out what those hormonal changes meant. And there are plenty of completely inexperienced boys and girls around willing to experiment with them behind Luke’s back. 

No, the voice tells him to _use it_. To take her weakness and make her fall by her own hand, and so he stands up straight and cockily twirls his saber in a wide arc, bringing it back down into a figure eight in the most presumptuous way he knows how. He lets her get complacent. He goads her right back.

“What? Haven’t had enough of me?” he calls, glad that once again Master Luke is off-world and can’t hear him say such things. It’s banter, of couse, but Jedi are not meant to develop attachments, much less the carnal kind. “If you’re good and defeat me, I’ll give you another one.”

There are whispers and catcalls. Everyone knows what he meant, but nobody knows that it isn’t _him_ talking. Not his usual self, at least. It is some gnarled form inside him, some seed planting itself, nurtured by that sickly, decaying voice inside his head that has become his companion more days than not.

 Kalen flushes, but she takes the bait. She rushes at him.

Ben smiles a predator’s smile. He lunges, and with the close proximity he has gained, with the _distraction_ now holds over her head, Ben spins, twists her body until her arm is pinned painfully behind her, Ben exerting force upward until Kalen is forced to step on her tiptoes or have her shoulder pop out of its socket. His saber’s held at throat point, her panting and his colliding between the shreds of clothing covering her back and his chest. 

“Ben!” a voice calls, attempting to drag him back from behind the haze of adrenaline and electric power running through his veins, but he hardly hears it.

“I win,” he murmurs, voice gravelly and dangerous, and Kalen whimpers. The spectators have gone deathly silent. But it isn’t the sane part of him acting anymore… not until the voice breaks through with another shout.

“BEN!” 

It’s Master Luke’s voice, eyes wide with shock and body stone-cold where he’s rooted a few steps ahead, still dusty from his travels and looking older than his years. 

In a rush, Ben Solo’s usual logical frame of mind slams back into him. He disengages the saber and stumbles back, leaving Kalen to fall forward on her knees. She turns, glaring at him over her shoulder before scrambling up to her feet, eyes falling to the ground. They were not supposed to be sparring in Luke’s absence. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben says immediately as Luke’s steps eat the distance. He can tell his uncle is trying to contain his own fury— _How hypocritical,_ says the voice—and Ben schools his face to chagrined calmness. “It went too far. It was only meant to be a friendly bout, Unc—Master. We got carried away.”

The voice congratulates him on shifting the blame away from him, at least partly, and Ben feels sick. No, he will not be the person the voice wants him to be. Ben amends,

“ _I_ got carried away. It will not happen again.”

At Ben’s admission, Luke’s eyes soften, and for the next twenty minutes the group of padawans are treated to the upbraiding of their lives for reckless, unsupervised behavior, and for allowing the children to eat too many sweets from the kitchens, and _why had nobody cleaned the halls as he’d instructed?_

Ben’s sickness does not ebb, even as he listens like a well chastised miscreant, and he swears to himself he will do better next time. Master Luke always told him he should set the example. So he would. 

 _Of course you will_ , the voice chuckles. _You’re such a good boy, after all_.

****

On another planet half a galaxy away, a young Rey scratches the day on her wall and counts. She had stolen a good look at the calendar Unkar kept in one of the ships she’d been forced to work on that day, and by her calculations of a standard galactic calendar, she’s been on Jakku for two whole years. 

She feels like crying, but she has no tears left. Her little body must hold onto any and all liquid she possesses. Tears are a waste. 

“You’ll come back,” she tells the wall but addresses her parents. Parents she knows left her, but that she refuses to believe left her for _good_. She had spoken to the vendors whom her parents had done business with, learned the painful truth behind her continued stay on Jakku, but she chose to believe. She chose to believe they would be better than that. That they had reasons, and her stay would only be temporary. 

She had forgotten when her real birthday was, by now, so on that last scratch marking her second year of misery in Jakku, Rey wishes herself a happy birthday, grabs the doll she’d made for herself, and tucks herself into her hammock. 

Perhaps wasting water on tears isn’t so bad, after all. It’s not like she can stop them from falling. She’s eight years old now. Or is it nine? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Rey's age is a bit of a question mark, because all material puts her at somewhere between 19-20 in the beginning of TFA, and Ben is canonically 29. Given month overlaps between birthdays and such, I'm still giving them a ten year difference, but at the moment of her birthday there's only 9. Minor thing, but I wanted to address it, since it helps the fact that Rey can no longer really even remember her age. 
> 
> Like the tags suggest, this is not a happy fic these first few chapters, but thank you for hanging in there with me <3

**Author's Note:**

> Comments & Kudos always loved. Follow me on tumblr for more updates and other sw nonsense: @lucidlucy.


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